C. Serpico

Two-colour pump–probe experiments with a twin-pulse-seed extreme ultraviolet free-electron laser

Exploring the dynamics of matter driven to extreme non-equilibrium states by an intense ultrashort X-ray pulse is becoming reality, thanks to the advent of free-electron laser technology that allows development of different schemes for probing the response at variable time delay with a second pulse. Here we report the generation of two-colour extreme ultraviolet pulses of controlled wavelengths, intensity and timing by seeding of high-gain harmonic generation free-electron laser with multiple independent laser pulses. The potential of this new scheme is demonstrated by the time evolution of a titanium-grating diffraction pattern, tuning the two coherent pulses to the titanium M-resonance and varying their intensities. This reveals that an intense pulse induces abrupt pattern changes on a time scale shorter than hydrodynamic expansion and ablation. This result exemplifies the essential capabilities of the jitter-free multiple-colour free-electron laser pulse sequences to study evolving states of matter with element sensitivity.

The FERMI free-electron lasers

FERMI is a seeded free-electron laser (FEL) facility located at the Elettra laboratory in Trieste, Italy, and is now in user operation with its first FEL line, FEL-1, covering the wavelength range between 100 and 20 nm. The second FEL line, FEL-2, a high-gain harmonic generation double-stage cascade covering the wavelength range 20-4 nm, has also completed commissioning and the first user call has been recently opened. An overview of the typical operating modes of the facility is presented.

Slow Interatomic Coulombic Decay of Multiply Excited Neon Clusters

Ne clusters (∼5000  atoms) were resonantly excited (2p→3s) by intense free electron laser (FEL) radiation at FERMI. Such multiply excited clusters can decay nonradiatively via energy exchange between at least two neighboring excited atoms. Benefiting from the precise tunability and narrow bandwidth of seeded FEL radiation, specific sites of the Ne clusters were probed. We found that the relaxation of cluster surface atoms proceeds via a sequence of interatomic or intermolecular Coulombic decay (ICD) processes while ICD of bulk atoms is additionally affected by the surrounding excited medium via inelastic electron scattering. For both cases, cluster excitations relax to atomic states prior to ICD, showing that this kind of ICD is rather slow (picosecond range). Controlling the average number of excitations per cluster via the FEL intensity allows a coarse tuning of the ICD rate.

High gradient, high reliability, and low wakefield accelerating structures for the FERMI FEL

The FERMI seeded free-electron laser (FEL), located at the Elettra laboratory in Trieste, is a 4th generation light source operating in the vacuum ultraviolet to soft X-rays range. The FEL design is based on an external seeding scheme which improves the output pulse coherence and the central wavelength control and reduces the spectral bandwidth. FERMI has achieved its original energy target by producing photon energies above 300 eV from a 1.50 GeV, 600 A peak current, electron beam. However, there is a strong scientific motivation to push the energy envelop further higher to photon energy up to 600 eV to cover both the x-ray absorption edges of nitrogen K (400 eV) and oxygen K (532 eV). To achieve this goal, the electron beam energy will be increased from 1.50 GeV to 1.80 GeV and the peak beam current will be pushed towards 1 kA. This requires essentially the development of more reliable high gradient S-band accelerating structures, with low wakefields contribution up to 1 nC charge per bunch. Accordingly, in the following, we present the design of high gradient, high reliability, and low wakefield S-band accelerating structures for the upgrade program of the FERMI linac.

Interatomic Coulombic Decay Processes after Multiple Valence Excitations in Ne Clusters

We present a comprehensive analysis of autoionization processes in Ne clusters (similar to 5000 atoms) after multiple valence excitations by free electron laser radiation. The evolution from 2-body interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) to 3-body ICD is demonstrated when changing from surface to bulk Frenkel exciton excitation. Super Coster-Kronig type 2-body ICD is observed at Wannier exciton which quenches the main ICD channel.